Music Promotion And The New Facebook Changes

Facebook has recently announced that they will be making some “major changes” to their “pages”. The stated goal is to make the pages look and function more like a Facebook profile.

Here are the changes you can expect to see on your fan page.

1. Photo strip above the Wall (with the most recent photos you posted or tagged) TIP: To optimize your photos size them to 96x67px in order to fit in the space provided and plan for them to be in random order.
2. Tabs move over to the left panel, in the form of a list (maximum of 6 above the fold)
3. Profile picture reduced from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540
4. Blurb box that was below the Page picture moved to info tab
5. Pages can “Like” other Pages, not just favorite them
6. Featured Pages and Admins
7. Page category
8. Choice for Wall posts between “Everyone” and Page posts only
9. Mutual Friends and Interests section
10. Ability to interact on Facebook as your Page
11. Ability for admins to post and comment around the site under their Page’s alias
12. News feed of updates from Liked Pages
13. Pages can now feature iFrame tab applications
14-Email notifications when users post or comment

Some are arguing that the removal of the tabs may force those who have been relying on customized landing pages to put additional effort into making their stream engaging. Others feel that the functionality is still ultimately the same and there won’t be any significant change for the user and that if anything, it will only enhance the user experience.

One thing to note is that if you have been using Facebook’s FBML language to code your landing page, customized paged will soon be changed to an iframe format. This is definitely going to have an impact on the DIY coder but many argue that it will ultimately result in better quality fan pages for those who specialize in it.

How do you use Facebook to promote your music? Will any of these changes effect your music marketing campaign?